further each hour
by lazyweekendmornings
Summary: The war is over, but there's still unfinished business to complete. Hermione and Ron set off to Australia to find her parents. [companion fic to 'all your fumble words']


The first thing Ron said when they reached Sydney was, "Blimey, I thought it'd be warmer here."

Hermione turned to look at him. They'd taken six Portkeys, and although it'd only been a matter of a few hours, she felt as if she'd been travelling for days. Weeks, maybe. She supposed it was the compounded effect of all the travel they had done the last year or so. Ron's hair, overgrown and shaggy and bright red as always, was rumpled, and he seemed to be feeling as sick as she was; he looked pale, and the freckles on his nose seem more prominent than usual.

"Well, it's winter here, nearly," she answered him. "Other end of the world, remember? The seasons are all different."

Ron seemed genuinely surprised. "Oh. Well, I hope we've packed some jumpers."

Hermione smiled, lifted up and pointed to up a small beaded bag that, at this point, was far more tattered than it was when she first bought it. She bought it at age fifteen, spotted it in the display of a shop during the summer, when her mum had taken her out for a day of shopping in muggle London. It had been the only thing she liked until her mum acquiesced and took her to a bookstore. "Plenty of jumpers. Don't worry," she said.

"Good," Ron said. He hesitated for a moment, scratched his nose. And then: "I wouldn't have worried, anyway. Not when you're around. Reckon you'll make sure we're just fine."

Hermione felt a flush of warmth in her chest, a unique sort of warmth that she only ever felt when Ron complimented her in that casual way he had, as if it was no big deal.

"Well," she said, shaking her head. She ran a hand through her hair, which was even frizzier than usual. "Anyways. We should get going."

"Where are we going?" Ron asked. He shoved a hand into the pocket of his jeans in a way that would look casual to any passer-by, but Hermione knew he was holding on to his wand. _Constant vigilance_, she imagined Crouch-as-Moody saying.

"Well. We've got to find some place to stay," Hermione said. "And maybe get something to eat. And then…"

"Then, we have to find your parents," Ron said. He wrapped his arm around her waist. "Seems like we're always looking for something, aren't we? First those damn Horcruxes. And now your parents."

_Don't run off this time_, Hermione thought. _Don't leave me. I could barely handle it the first time. _What she said was, "Hopefully there'll be less Death Eaters this time around, right?"

Ron laughed. She would never admit it but she always considered it a personal victory when she managed to make him laugh.

"Do you have any idea on where we are, anyway?" he asked. He didn't move her hand from around her waist.

It was only then that Hermione dropped the rumpled quill she'd been holding. The former Portkey fluttered to the ground. She watched it for a moment, brow furrowed as she thought. Three hours, to get from London to Sydney. She wondered if the same Portkey charm could be modified, could be used in a secure way to transport letters. She wasn't sure how well owls would work, if they were travelling such long distances, and there had to be a more convenient way. She'd never invented a spell before, of course, but surely this would just be a matter of modifying an existing spell. If she found a wizarding bookshop here, if she got her hands on a book about the theory of spell creation and modification, something very basic—

"Hermione?" Ron said, interrupting her stream of thinking.

She blinked once, stored her thoughts for later, and then said, "We're in Sydney. In Bondi, specifically. The Ministry here is in Canberra, but we're quite close to a wizarding village here. That's why I chose this place, for us to come to."

Ron nodded. "Do you think… do you think your parents will be here?" he asked, in a gentle tone he only ever used with her.

She looked around. They were in an abandoned alley, but even if they hadn't been, it was getting quite dark. Right. The time difference, of course. She lifted up her wrist and tapped her watch with her wand. The little hands on the face moved and settled down within a few seconds, showing her the local time. Ten in the night. "I don't know," she told Ron. She leaned over and lifted his free hand, tapping his watch with her wand and adjusting the time for him as well. "But the report Proudfoot sent Kingsley that he showed us, it said that this was the most likely place to find them. And I left them a couple of hints about Sydney when I was casting the charm. I think they'll be here, in the area."

"Right, yeah. I remember," Ron said.

As if by silent agreement, they started to walk. Neither of them said anything, but she could feel the warmth of Ron's arm firm around her waist, keeping her safe and warm.

Twenty minutes and one sneaky Confundus Charm later, they made their way into a small, well-lit hotel room. It overlooked the road, the bathroom had a bathtub that Hermione already wanted to go soak in, and… and only one bed.

"There's only one bed," Hermione said, closing the door behind her. She set the beaded bag down on a desk by the doorway and took out her wand. She turned to glance at Ron, suddenly nervous.

"Well," Ron said, the tips of his ears going red. "Suppose we won't have to worry about being too cold in the night, then."

She supposed he had a point.

"Nothing!" Hermione snapped, slamming the door of the hotel room behind her.

Ron was quiet, but lifted his wand. "_Muffliato_," he murmured. Hermione sat down on the bed, listening to the now-familiar sounds of Ron casting defensive spells.

"One week. It's been _one week_, and we haven't found anything. That's three different Wendell Jenkins, five different Monicas, and not—" she lifted up a pillow off the bed, "a—" she threw it to the ground, "damn—" she kicked it, for good measure, "thing!"

"_Protego totalum_," Ron concluded, and set his wand down on the spare inch that was left on the desk. It was covered with bits of parchment and the hotel stationery Hermione had found in the desk drawer. She had meticulously laid out everything, all the reports from Proudfoot, all the notes she'd made, all her theories for where her parents could be. By the third day, she'd taken to rifling through them every day- in the morning, before they left, and in the evening, when they got back. She didn't bother with it today, just flopped onto the bed and let out a heavy sigh.

"It's only been a week, Hermione," Ron said, making his way over to her. "We've got to—I dunno. Be more patient, I s'pose."

This was what it had come to, Hermione thought. Ron Weasley lecturing her about patience.

"You were right," Hermione said, throwing back her head against the headboard of the bed and closing her eyes, "it's just like the _bloody_ Horcruxes all over again."

More silence. Hermione sighed. There was no point of any of this. She'd been delusional, thinking they would find her parents so soon. It was already July, and they had gotten absolutely nowhere. It was driving her absolutely insane. It was all laid out in front of her, a puzzle she couldn't figure out, a problem (that she had caused) that she couldn't solve.

She heard a murmured incantation. In what seemed like a minute, Ron was pressing a warm cup into her hands. She opened her eyes and looked down at a steaming cup of tea and felt almost like crying. "Thanks," she mumbled.

Ron shrugged, looking a little self-conscious. "It's fine. It's what my mum does when someone's upset," he mumbled and sat down next to her. "You know what I think?" he asked.

Hermione turned to look at him once she'd had a sip of tea. "What?"

"I think we're going about this all wrong," he said. "We've been trying to trace them with magical methods. But they've been living like Muggles, right?"

"Yeah," Hermione said slowly.

"Well, then we've got to trace them like how Muggles would," Ron said. "The Muggle pleasemen or something—"

"Policemen, Ron," Hermione said. She could feel a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

"Yes, them. My dad says they track down people all the time. Surely they have a better way of doing it than what we're doing."

Hermione thought about it. So far, they had been trying to trace her parents the wizard way. It had yielded them zero success. "That's brilliant, Ron," she said.

Ron's ears went red. "Really?"

"Of course. It's what we should do next. I can't believe I didn't think of it, it's genius!"

"Always the tone of surprise," Ron said, but he was smiling.

"I had an idea," she said, apropos of nothing.

"Yeah?" asked Ron.

"About how to get word home," she said. She hadn't even realised that she'd called the Burrow home, but when Ron gave her a little smile, she understood why. She could feel her cheeks warm up, but soldiered on. "The owl we sent when we first got here probably hasn't reached them yet. But then I thought… Portkeys."

"Portkeys?"

"If we modify the charm, surely we can apply the same principle to letters, right? Get them back home immediately? I've been studying up on the theories of Porkeys—"

"Honestly, I have no idea when you get the time to do this stuff," muttered Ron.

"—and I think I could do it. Get a letter to them in minutes. Well, _maybe _not minutes, not at first, but hours, at any rate. And then we could ask your dad what he thinks, since he works with Muggle policemen sometimes for his job, doesn't he?" She stopped, not because she had run out things to say, but because she had run out of breath.

Ron leaned forward. "Have I ever told you you're brilliant?"

"You have," Hermione said.

"Well, you are," said Ron, and then he was leaning in to kiss her, and she couldn't really focus on much else.

"I've got it," she announced, two days later. It was five am, she hadn't slept at all, her hair was frizzier than she could ever remember it being, and she was sitting on the floor of her hotel, surrounded by paper, quills, and about six cups of coffee.

"Whassa—" mumbled Ron from the bed. He slowly sat up and clicked his Deluminator. Light flooded the room, making her blink a few times. It was an adjustment, going from working by wandlight to this.

"I've got it," she said again.

"Whatimezit?" Ron said, leaning back against the pillows.

"The letters. I've figured out how to do it," she said. "And I calculated the time difference between here and England. "And it's about eight in the evening there. We could get a letter to them and they'd see it now, if it works!"

Ron scrambled to his feet, and went to join her on the floor. "Really? Fuck. Merlin, that's incredible," he breathed. His voice was hoarse from sleep. She looked up at him, into his piercing blue eyes. His hair was rumpled, and his maroon pyjamas looked more intensely maroon in the harsh yellow light of their room. She was suddenly aware that he was so close to her. This wasn't the first time they'd been this close over the last few weeks. She'd been sneaking into his bedroom nearly every night since they'd first gotten back to the Burrow after the war. In fact, she doubted anyone had slept in the room she'd been sharing with Ginny at all. But it was five am, pitch-black outside but bright as a sunny day inside the room, she had just figured out one of the things she'd been puzzling over for the last week now, and Ron was looking at her, half-asleep and tender. Ron, who had decided to come with her to the other end of the world without a single second of hesitation, who was looking at her and waiting patiently for her to explain what she had figured out. She had a sudden memory of Ron offering to fake his family tree, to swear he and Hermione were related, to save her from the Death Eaters and the Ministry.

Ron, who she was so, so in love with him that it physically hurt her.

"What's wrong?" Ron said. He seemed to have picked up on her furrowed brow.

"Nothing, I just…" Hermione trailed off. Summoning up every last bit of her courage, she looked up at him. "I love you," she told him, clear and ringing. She wasn't sure if it was the sleep deprivation, but her words seemed almost to echo in the hotel room.

Ron looked down at her. Slowly, carefully, he brought his hand up, tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Oh. That's it? I thought it was something bad, the way you looked. Reckoned you'd want to start up SPEW all over again or summat," he said, but he was grinning.

"Well, I haven't actually done any research into house elves in Australia, but I'm sure that they—" Hermione started, but she cut herself off when she saw the way Ron was looking at her.

"I love you, too," he told her. "Obviously. Reckon everyone knew before I did. Now will you show me what you've done? It's not every day that your girlfriend invents an entire spell, you know."

A little voice in Hermione's head said _girlfriend girlfriend girlfriend _on loop, but she pushed it down and brought her wand out so she could explain what she'd come up with to Ron. They had work to do, after all.

The solution was almost laughably simple, and Hermione would never admit it to anybody, but she was possibly, maybe, a tiny but upset that she hadn't come up with it herself.

"Wendell and Monica Jenkins. They're dentists. Possibly opened a practice. Definitely bought a house. In Sydney. Or Bondi. I know there'll be… some sort of paper trail, or something," she told the police detective behind the desk. Next to her, Imperviused, Ron shifted. Not for the first time, Hermione wished she'd thought to ask Harry if they could have borrowed his Cloak. But on the bright side, she and Ron were getting quite good at the Impervius charm.

"Now," she breathed, barely louder than a whisper.

"_Confundo_," Ron whispered. She felt a barely perceptible whoosh of air over them, and then the man behind the desk shuddered. She crossed her fingers under the desk, and waited.

"Right, yeah. Course," said the man. He shook his head abruptly. "Right. Yeah," he said again.

"And you can get it to us by the end of the day. And no one else needs to know. You'll send it to the hotel," Hermione said.

"Yeah," the man said yet again.

"Great. Thank you so much," Hermione said and stood up. She left the station, and let out a small sigh of relief. A muttered incantation later and Ron came shimmering into view, wearing a Weasley jumper and a self-satisfied expression.

"I'm pretty sure your dad would arrest us," Hermione said. Unlike Ron, she didn't feel satisfied at all. There was a knot of anxiety in her chest, and it refused to ease up. "That's the second or third time we've had to Confound someone. A Muggle. And we're almost definitely breaking the law…"

"Hermione," Ron said. His smirk had faded, and he reached out and held her hand. His hand was warm around her clammy, shaky one. "This plan was brilliant. We're not hurting any Muggles. The pleaseman will give us a list of Jenkins. And no one gets hurt. And…" he rubbed his thumb over her hand gently. "And we're going to do it. We're going to find your parents and bring them home."

She slowly nodded, even though his words seemed to be coming to her from far, far away.

"And," he continued. "We kind of needed to Confound the person at the hotel desk. We've got no idea how Muggle hotels work – well, I don't—but… but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't let two eighteen year olds stay here alone without asking questions. And we're still paying. No one's getting hurt," he repeated.

"Yeah," she slowly whispered. She leaned forward, rested her head against his chest.

"Come on," Ron said. She felt a hand on her cheek, wiping her tears away. "Reckon we've done enough work for the day. We'll have the list of names by the evening. Let's go to that beach we heard the Muggles talking about."

She slowly opened her eyes, looked up at him. She supposed there was no more work to be done, not until they had a list of names and addresses to look up.

"Right," she said, and took his hand. "I want to get a letter home first, though. Let Harry know we've made progress."

Ron wrinkled his nose. "I still can't believe he's there, alone with my sister…"

"Ron," Hermione said, a wave of frustration washing over her that honestly, at this point, was comforting in its familiarity, "we've talked about this."

"I know," Ron grumbled, but there was no bite in it. "Right, fine. Let's go get a letter to him, and then the beach?"

"And then the beach," Hermione agreed, squeezing his hand.

"Okay," Hermione murmured. "Okay. We can do this. I can do this."

"You can, 'Mione," Ron said.

This was the last house. They'd checked every other address on the list the policeman had sent them, been to thirteen other houses and seven dental practices. It was nearing the end of July, and they had spent a month on this. This was the last name, the last Wendell and Monica Jenkins in the Sydney area, their last hope.

The last chance Hermione had of seeing her parents.

She couldn't bring herself to lift her hand up and knock. The house looked generic enough from the outside. A good house in a good neighbourhood. Painted white, with a wooden door. A bronze knocker. A little doorbell next to it.

"I'm scared," she admitted.

"Hermione. You've destroyed a Horcrux. You helped kill the worst Dark wizard of all time. The Minister for Magic's written to you for advice more than once," Ron said, looking at her with a little smile. "If you can't do this, then no one else in the entire bloody world can. You've got nothing to be scared of."

Hermione took a deep breath. And then another, for good measure.

"Okay," she finally said. She squared her shoulders and pressed on the doorbell. She could hear the sound of the doorbell from inside the house. "Okay. You're right. Let's do this."

It only took a moment before the door opened and Hermione was confronted, for the first time in over a year, with the sight of her mother.

"Yes?" Monica Wilkins said, looking at her daughter with not a single trace of recognition in her face.

Hermione could feel a lump in her throat. She couldn't move, she couldn't think. She hadn't thought this far, she hadn't thought about what she would do if they actually succeeded, if they actually found her parents.

Next to her, Ron cleared her throat and stepped forward. "Hi. I'm Ron Weasley, this is Hermione. Can we come in, please? We've got something to talk to you about. It's – er – it's quite important," he said.

"Oh. Well… I suppose," said Hermione's mother. She stepped aside, frowning, and Ron walked in without hesitating at all. He turned to look at Hermione once he was past the threshold. He didn't say anything, but gave her an expectant look.

Hermione only hesitated a second longer before she gave in. She took a step forward, and then another, and then walked into her parents' house, closing the door firmly behind herself.


End file.
